Inside I'm Hollow
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Summary: Padme finds herself taken prisoner by Vader. Or is it the other way around...?
1. Default Chapter

Hi! Thanks so much for bothering to stop by and take a look a my little thread. 

This is my explanation for Padme's absence in the original trillogy. It was originally supposed to be a short story, but it got so involved I knew I wouldn't be able to pull it off without people prodding me on. Never the less, I'm a little uncertain about it, so I would LOVE feedback, really, dahling, I would. 

Thanks again, 

Meredith 

Ps. I'm not neglecting my other fics, I promise! 

LEGAL DISCLAIMER: 

(to 'Georgy-Porgy') 

George Lucas is a guy, 

He makes so much money and stacks it so high, 

So, in his universe I'd like to play, 

As long as the lawyers don't make me pay! 

PERSONAL DISCLAIMER: I'm a hopeless romantic, but not a very nice one. You've been warned. 

__

It's not the canaries couldn't cry out as they were killed. 

It's just that they chose not to. 

-"Kanariya" by Ayumi Hamasaki 

Date Begun: December 14th, 2001

Date Finished: April 6th, 2002

=======================

Inside I'm Hollow 

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

=======================

They lay down together in separate beds, because he was a Jedi and she a senator. The room was red and cream, the colors of wanting, and between their bed rose a red stained-glass window. They reached their hands across the space, touching, holding on. The lights went off and the crimson darkness, thrown by the window, settled over them both.

"I knew you, a long time ago."

She turned her head, resting her cheek against her hair as she gazed at him across the divide. Her voice was quiet, the words formed like grains of sand.

"It has been a long time for," she hesitated, tasting the word, "us."

"No, I meant something else. I saw you-- before we met."

Because she wanted to understand, she remained silent.

"I was outside town, watching the sunset. You were there, on the dune, bleeding and crying but you were still--," he stopped for a moment, "You were still an angel. I wanted to help you, but you looked at me and it hurt, having you look at me. Then, just like that, you were gone."

For some reason, she couldn't say she was sorry, so she said, "It's alright, Anakin."

"No. No, it's not alright. It was a vision, I think. Will you be careful?"

This-- the two of them, holding hands and whispering in the darkness-- was the furthest thing from careful, but she said, "Alright, darling."

"Thank you," she could just make out his smile in the blood light, "Good night."

Their hands detached, and he rolled over, but she just lay still. Her hand fisted over her heart and she stared up at the red tangle of black illumination on the ceiling, eyes wide. After a while, she thought she was drowning.

For a long time after that, whenever Vader's mind lashed against her own, scraping against her skull and trying to get inside; whenever his Force rushed her to the edge and she stood over the yowling darkness, she would go back there. She'd stand between the two slim beds, staring up at the red-glass window and holding on for dear life.

* * * * * * * * *

She turned her head, the welts on her cheek protesting the touch of her matted hair, the cold of the bench they'd strapped her to. Bit by bit, she forced an awareness of her body, to make sure it was all still there. Here are my toes, which burn because they've been kissed by hot coals; here are my legs, one of which is broken; and my wrists that ache with embrace of iron bands; my chest that is too heavy to lift... Her cracked lips pulled back ever so slightly, releasing a long hiss of pain. There had to be more than that, more identity than wounds on the body, something beyond the bright light and the cold table. 

Alright, okay, when you're tired past feeling and your soul is tethered to your body by a little thin cord, you go back and try to find some place dark enough to swallow the whole of your being. She did that too, casting back over the horizon's of her life, seeing a smile from mother here, and a double sunset there, and a little boy with the face of an angel who worked as a slave in a junk shop.... Well, there wasn't any comfort there. Maybe she'd just made that up, anyway. It was probably part of a fairy tale, mixed with something she'd read, because aren't dreams just a reflection of what you see when you're awake? She turned her head again, squinting against the bright light above, which was like the heat on Tatooine and at the same time like the flame she'd burned herself with when she was three. Hold on then, keep them coming, if the light is like the twin suns of some one's-- 

I know but I'm not telling

-- home planet, then what is the cold bench like? The rock, shaped like a coffin, jutting up from the lake like a giant whale. She could see it from her bedroom window when she was a child. Then, when summer rolled late over the mountain village, she'd run with her cousins down that the lake, waves brushing against they're ankles like the wings of held birds. The chill in her memory was the same as the present cold on her back, and they merged into one so that she *was* running into the lake, the water rushing against her in a painful embrace. She moved her arms, pulled herself through under the surface, thick dress and hair swirling about in the current. She turned around, could see the light coming down through the water, broken to pieces until she could just reach up and touch it...

It wasn't until a few minutes later, when the pain died away, that she realized she *had* tried to move her arm, and the machine had acted accordingly. Down the hall, the sounds of doors being unlocked and pass codes being verified carried like the heavy echoes of spider movement. This was how she told time, when she could conceive of time at all; heavy chimes of heat, muscles being stretched, on and on. 

They never even asked her any questions. 

* * * * * * * * *

Once, he'd come to her side to justify himself.

They'd left her lying on the metal table, with the bright light pressing its needles of illumination into her skin. Closing her eyes, she saw the color of her eyelids, felt her throats desperate clutching for water. She'd tricked herself into believing that she was five again, crouched in the dusty, cold stairwell near her parents' apartment. The cold was a second garment around her slim shoulders, and she pressed herself inward, watching the sunlight tumble down the steps. Meager warmth filtered in against her back; she found, staring into the winter sun, that the world could change like the painful facets of a crystal. In the bright blotches-- red, brown, yellow and fire of orange-- she saw ribbons of destruction, ladies riding with their swords raised high. Faeries meeting their death by fire. It was all the same, past and present, the stairwell and the bench. Again, she saw pillars of fire and wars that spilled blood and blood. Entertainment for the dying. Sound curled against her ears; the child in the long-ago stairwell thought it was dried leaves on the wooden boards, but she knew better. More noise, retreating boots, the closing of doors-- he'd motioned them away. She heard the scrape of metal on the merciless stone floor, but couldn't bring herself to open her eyes. The brightness bore through her defenses; the Light of the Force, building rules and regulations, burning away passion and anger and hope and chances and taking her Ani away. 

The darkness was abrupt, the fall of a heavy blanket and, though she'd longed for relief, she fought against the change. There were things that grew and blurred when the light went away. Her arms tried to raise, to defend her body from whatever blow was to come, and that was a mistake. She thought her own screaming voice sounded like an ocean of blood, and was almost certain she was loosing her mind. Fear was as piercing as the electrodes holding her limbs down. 

"Padme." His voice, and she realized her broken gasping was in time with his own. Holding her breath, she pressed her legs together and waited. Another click and the darkness changed texture-- there must have still been a few lights on. 

"Thanks," she said, because she'd been taught to say so. Her cheek touched the table, the table caught her tears as she sought out his voice. A touch came against the welt on the side of her face, the feel of synthetic humanity. Because old memories were turning her stomach, she asked, "Do you even have any fingers left?"

"In that hand, yes," Vader's voice was flat, factual. She didn't want any hope, didn't want to remember that he was left handed and now touching her with his right, the one with real fingers. It didn't mean anything. 'So fickle I am,' she thought, 'I want the light back now that the dark is trying to trick me.' The sound of the respirator could have been the waterfalls outside the window, she could be young again, recently married and sick with her husband at her bedside.

Her teeth stabbed at her lip like little pearl knives, "Why am I here?"

"They cut your hair," he exhaled angrily, fingering her shorn locks. Taking a strand in two fingers, he brushed the boyish length behind her ears. "I told them not to cut your hair." 

"Did you, now?" Padme smiled bitterly, wondering if he could see it in the dark.

Such a paltry thing, her long ropes of hair; but she'd loved it so much that she hadn't cut it when she wed, as traditional Nubian women did. Shorn hair was a loss of power-- it symbolized a break with the past. She remembered her sister's wedding party, the two of them holding fold after fold of ebony curls over the flame, watching them melt into gold. 

Her mother's voice now, in the back of her mind, 'If you must cut your hair, burn it quickly. Women have a power men don't, you don't someone else to get it.' Mother, smiling now, her face alive with remembered glory. Old, weathered finger tossed gray locks into the blaze. 'Smell that?' she held her hand in front of her nose, 'It's the smell of possibility. Long hair brings good fortune.'

Curling her fingers in, Padme let her nails kiss her palms until they drew blood. The soldier who cut her hair had known, had laughed as he held the blunt knife to the nape of her neck and pulled and pulled and pulled. God, she didn't even know why she was here. Vader reached over-- with his right hand again-- peeling away her fist with a few fumbles of his fingers. 

Hurting, she said, "Your lightsaber..." but somehow couldn't finish. Ram me through, she meant to say, pin me down like a butterfly under glass, let's see what kind of a sound my burning flesh makes.

"No," he was touching a wet cloth to her lips now, and she turned her head away.

"Why am I even talking to you? You're a party to this." The rhythm of his breathing seemed to change. 

"I don't want to do this," he said.

"Oh, don't you just?" her tongue flicked against her teeth like anger, "You come here and you hold my hand like someone I used to know. You touch my cheek with pieces of his body, but it DOESN'T BELONG TO YOU!" Tears pooled before her eyes, she was drowning in them, "You stole his body! Grave-robber, thief! Thief!"

"STOP!" His left hand clamped over her mouth, and she screamed against it as electricity leapt from her chains to sing in her veins. "That is enough. I asked you before, I gave you a chance." He took his hand away, "You can still have it." He must have seen her frown because, after a moment, he continued. "They brought you in from the Rebel underground on Hoth-- you were made of glass you were so cold." He traced along the dip in her shoulder, "When you first saw me, you struggled so much you broke your collar bone. Name your accomplices, vow loyalty to the Empire-- the questions are the same as they were then." There was more emotion in his voice than she thought machines were capable of producing. 

"Is that what happened?" She had no memory of the event, made no effort to search for it. "Isn't that convenient-- I don't do what you want, so it's my fault. Well," Padme tilted her chin like she was still a queen, not a prisoner chained down, "I'm done with penance and guilt." His flaring anger was almost physical, she could feel it washing against her bare skin. The rising column of his lightsaber threw red light as though it was blood, as though they slept beneath the cut-glass window of so long ago. The blade reflected in her eyes, and her face reflected in the polished onyx of his mask. 

It hurt to look at him. 

Swallowing her grief, she breathed, "What do you want of me?"

If she wanted to, she could give him one of Anakin's expressions beneath that mask. He could look bemused, vaguely angry as he plunged the room back into darkness-- and Padme forced herself to withhold that humanity from him. He didn't touch her again, and she closed her eyes. They could be two shadows, formless, speaking in the void. 

"You gave birth to twins," he said, and it was as if he'd driven a fine thorn into her breast. "There wasn't a Force-sensitive in this galaxy who didn't feel their power. Obi-Wan must have worked quickly to hide them so well."

"You're not going to find them," she said softly. There was no need to say it firmly, for it was the truth. "I don't even know where they are." Her arms ached, the cradle of her hips felt empty-- oh, she might as well have been childless. 

"That's not the point."

"Isn't it?"

"You can not touch the Force," he spoke without inflection, and she imagined him as a puppet for the Emperor's words, "yet your children are powerful, more powerful than can be accounted for, even if their sire was strong in the Force."

"I'm not a Sensitive."

"Perhaps not in conventional terms." Why did it sound like he was smiling? "The Emperor believes you can tap into the Force in ways many Jedi are barred from." 

He grabbed her hand in a way that brought back a million different moments, in a way that was so powerful Padme knew it had been deliberately calculated. Anakin's memories, wrapped in a machine that could use them against her! There was an explosion somewhere, in her throat, in her brain-- it might have been both-- and she felt the pain inflicted on her body and mind as one thing. He was pushing at her, she didn't know how, but she could feel him edging her towards different paths, uncharted territories that stretched into frightening oblivion. It was like opening a door, just a little, making a small crack in a window. Something always comes in, through the chimney, the threshold, the basement; whether you know it or not. And...

There was a complete break, like a twig snapping. Though she was still laying down, she felt her small freedoms in the ability to move her arms, her legs, without fear of electrocution. Her body, so starved for pleasant sensations, soaked them up so quickly that for a moment Padme was not able to tell where she was. Smooth satin lay against her body, a gold that shimmered to passionate crimson. There were cool black rings embracing her fingers, the feel of cut gems laying against her neck and dangling from her ears. There was a motion, the rocking of a cradle, and she realized she was being lifted in a type of lectaria, all smooth circular lines to cushion her body. Soldiers moved in and out of her field of vision, smoothing quilts over her, tucking them in down around her ankle. None of them spoke to her, they were just doing their job; tilting their white helmets away from her like ghosts. Truly struggling now, she found her freedom falling away-- smooth ropes of pearls were looped around her wrists. Such extravagant binding! She felt sick to her stomach, a china-doll parody of a prisoner. She moved her legs, kicked away the coverlets, found her feet bent and reshaped into tiny works of art. With growing horror, Padme realized she would never be able to walk. The covers were smoothed back over her, the lectaria was carried on the shoulders of Stormtroopers into a world of varying white. A city then, she thought, craning her neck in an attempt see more of the buildings. Ebony danced in the corner of her eye, and she knew instinctively that her captor would always be the same. Vader loomed at the bottom of landing ramp, staring out at the assembled community who looked back at him with the eyes of frightened children.

A voice boomed, "It is an honor to serve you, Lord and Lady Vader," and she tried to howl her rage, her betrayal into the cold air.

No sound came.

Frantic now, Padme clawed at her neck, at the delicate strings of her throat, bashing the round pearls against her chest as though she could shatter herself. Misery wound itself inside her, and in that moment Vader turned; she could see the symbol of his triumph hanging on his belt, beside the lightsaber he used to cut down so many. 

Floating in a small, invincible vile, was her voice box.

Screaming she left, and screaming she returned; embracing the torture chamber with insane relief. At least the electrodes, the chains and the table did not bother to dress themselves up and lie. 

"What did you see?" Vader prompted, moving his hand over her mouth once more. She bit down on it with animal ferocity, disgusted with that she'd just seen (been?). Voiceless, motionless; the Dark Lord's little pet... Her blood sang with rebellion, with strength she'd thought long gone.

"I saw nothing," she spat, "That's never going to happen. I saw nothing!" 

"You did see something, your mind opened for a moment," the man in Anakin's body was calm, somehow distant. Paying him no mind, Padme tested the fingers of her left hand, finding three unbroken. 

"What the hell did you do to me?" she muttered.

Again, she somehow sensed his mirthless smile, "The future is always in motion. When a Jedi has a vision, he sees only the possible. But," he was using the Emperor's words again, she could tell, "if the future is in motion, then so is the past, so is everything. The Emperor believes you can see things he can't, and I believe he is correct."

"As bad at it is," she shook her head, remembering her broken little vision-feet, "it can always get worse." With slow, childish movements, she pushed against the band of gold resting on her ring finger. That it remained when all else had been taken from her was yet another symbol, everything here was weighted. The wedding band slipped from her finger, falling against the floor with a sound of swords clashing. Vader knelt by her side, siding the ring against her finger in such a parody of devotion that Padme laughed and laughed and could not stop laughing.

The next day, he brought in the cell the man who'd cut her hair, and murdered him with a cool swipe of his blade. When she shouted her rage at him, he pushed her into the maelstrom again. 

-----------------------

They used pain to push her into foreign landscapes, precise suffering to force her into looking through someone else's eyes. In her mind, she addressed those women who bore her face and name as strangers; screaming in her secret heart 'that can't be me!'. The reflections of herself were too painful to be recognized, too different but all too understandable. No one wants to see themselves magnified. She stemmed the guilt, the sadness as quickly as she could; any emotion could be used against her. Vader knew, of course, whatever she was feeling; the fractured pieces of Anakin's body were like dowsing rods, dipping into her heart with practiced ease. She raged against him, but anger could push her into the tempest; she wept her mother's grief, but she saw her children's futures in shades of red, gold and black-- impossible and frightening. Staring up at the ceiling, Padme shelled herself out, ripping from herself the things that betrayed her. Safinudo, an accented word held low in the throat. 'Brethren cut', literally; the Nubian word for traitor.

Time was fluid because the light was only there when it could make her feel discomfort, and the dark came only to frighten her out of her emotional draught. Always, the red window was with her, and Anakin's voice:

"I knew you, a long time ago."

//It was like being rebuilt, molecule by molecule, this entrance into elsewhere; this transference of the mind. As always, the colors seemed at first too dull, then too bright, and Padme felt her heart flutter in fear. 'What if I never get back?' Could she abandon her body, just like that; liquid poured from one container to another? Or, like the whispered stories told in her mother's voice, would she wander-- always seeking someone to pull down in her place?

The room grew with her awareness of it; sunset colors poured through the high gilded windows, falling over the marble desk, the elegant chairs in their vague colors. Padme turned slowly, watching the people as though she was watching a play. Impersonal; this doesn't involve me. Sabe stood by the couch, her hand resting on it's frame in a distant gesture of comfort. And there, with her back straight and her hands folded regally, was the else-Padme. Face pale with makeup and eyes distant as the twin moons of Naboo, she was orphaned and polished, she was Amidala personified. Padme turned away from the others-- who could not see or hear her even if she screamed and screamed-- casting her gaze out on the darkening skies. Coruscant sprawled before her, magnificent but somehow changed. It took her a moment to realize that the pace of the crowds was not the usual hurry of things that needed to get done, but instead the chaos of war. In the half-light of the fading sun, it was easier to see a peace that wasn't there. 

"Your Majesty, we must leave," Sabe's voice was quiet and somehow broken in the otherwise silent room. Padme folded her hand against the window, closing her eyes; it was easier to listen to disembodied voices.

"I will not be driven out," Amidala said, and her voice was firm but soulless. Almost as a confession, she added, "again."

"Pad--" the handmaiden began. 

"No," said the Queen without a throne; said Padme, her lips silently forming the words. How well she knew herself now that she could see from the outside! Gentler now, "Hurry. Just go to the transport deck before they get that too. Someone will take you, I promise, just..." There came a rustle of skirts-- Sabe kneeling quickly, Amidala bidding her a farewell that said they might never see each other again. 

'Now it's just me,' Padme thought when the door clicked shut. 'Me, myself and I.'

Turning from the window, she saw Amidala still sitting on the couch. The other woman (me, it's me, it's me!), though motionless, seemed to be gathering something into herself.

"Looking for purpose, honey?" Padme asked, surprised by the tone in her own voice. Absently, she ran her hands along the desk, relishing the fact she couldn't actually feel anything, "Looking for resolve? I can't help you." Her words hung in the air, falling on her skin like drops of blood, but she felt better for saying them. The building shook, subtly at first, like a mounting tsunami, before the jarring gained force and crashed against her body like an invisible fist. The windows cracked and shattered, she felt the glass pass through her and wished it would cut her so much that she was almost ill with it. Amidala rose from the couch, and Padme watched her carefully, watched her ballerina movements and the way she held her skirts when she moved. The Queen reached out her hand-- the one Padme knew would bare a scar from falling out of a tree at five-- and snatched something off the desk. A piece of glass, perhaps? Padme's wrists pounded with blood screaming to be free. Cut me too, she chanted internally, oh, cut me too. A sound washed into the room, Padme found herself looking furtively for its source; it was like the sound of a tornado in the distance. Amidala must have heard it too, but she only squared her shoulders and took a seat once more, crossing her legs in an almost ludicrous motion of casualness. The ornate door, once closed and locked, gave two protesting moans before it caved to the force behind it. Padme saw the shine of the red light saber, saw the bloodglow reflecting in two blue eyes she had once known. The low cry of loss tore itself from her throat, but Amidala was strangely silent.

Padme moved behind the couch, watching the two carefully; her mirror and this grotesque Anakin. How much easier it was to dismantle her love when she could see the hatred burning in his eyes! This Vader had held onto Anakin's face. There was no recognition between them; the junk shop and the hot sun and the low words of reverence had never happened.

'I will not be driven out again,' Amidala had said.

Had she lost Naboo to the Trade Federation?

That explained the perfect grace, the emotionless eyes. This Amidala was a puppet, a goddess stripped of her power. How demeaning.

"Who are you?" Anakin, the twisted little boy, asked. Padme's throat closed over her tears, for she saw in his eyes that same love of so long ago, that same instant enslavement. 

"Amidala, of the Naboo." There was no raising of the chin, no haughty tone, much to Padme's surprise. Instead, Amidala smiled helpfully, almost shyly, gazing downward just slightly. A stray curl fell from her elaborate braids, brushing against her cheek in whispered invitation. 

"Amidala," the Sith repeated, tasting the name. Reluctantly, it seemed, he took stock of the rest of the room. For the first time, Padme noticed the small rifle laying on the couch, and her eyes rested on it just as Anakin's did. He looked from the blaster to the Queen, and back again; and Padme somehow thought that he relaxed his grip on the light saber. Never allowing her gaze to leave her enemy's face, Amidala took hold of the weapon and tossed it to the ground. In one fluid motion, the Queen knelt beside it, her violet gown pooling around her like alien sunshine. 

Thrusting her hands forward, palms up and wrists bared, she said, "I'm at your mercy." She was looking up through her lashes, lips parted breathlessly. Skin crawling, Padme watched Anakin deactivate his light saber, hold out his hand to Amidala.

"Will you come with me?" he asked, sounding much like a little boy, "I'll see that you're taken care of. I won't let anyone hurt you." 

Amidala's smile was enigmatic, sickeningly sweet, "Of course." She rose as gracefully as she had fallen, hand in Anakin's as she allowed him to draw her close.

"I know you, somehow..." the Sith began, but never finished, for there was a sound of metal on flesh, clawing its way with ruthless precision. Dark joy rose in Padme, and then shame; Amidala's hand was fisted around the handle of a knife-- she must have grabbed it off the desk-- twisting it between the bones of her enemy's ribcage. She'd cut to the heart, her palms darkening with crimson as Anakin crumbled to the floor. His eyes, his sky blue eyes, rolled up and disappeared, and his face went lax, erasing the surprise. 

Amidala stood over him for a moment, Padme by her side, studying the ruins of a man she knew and did not know. She held her hands up, as if to support the weight of her crime, before wiping them roughly on her skirts. With one, delicate shoed foot, she kicked the body.

"This," she said on impact, "is for thinking I would ever really bow to you." She stepped over him, her baring regal and without remorse. Padme stood, looking down at the corpse with a face so like her husband's, and wondered if it was worse to be the conquered or the conqueror. 

Somehow, she was thinking they were the same thing.//

Coming back was not as abrupt as it used to be, it was more like being drawn in with the tide, called back to her anchor. The lights were off-- a great relief-- when she gasped and rose at last from the sea of consciousness. How many levels could she descend, how far could she dive before she lost her way entirely?

"Don't make me do it again," she gasped, somehow sensing Vader's presence. She was choking on guilt; how much she loved Anakin and how much she wanted this impostor dead. "God, why do you do this to me?" He was near, very, for he reached out and ran his gloved finger against the column of her throat. She wanted to be deprived of sensation, she didn't want to feel anything anymore. 

"I don't want to," he said, like he meant it, which was the worst part. Maybe he really believed it, maybe he really did want to help her and the Emperor's power over him erased all the will. She wasn't sure what she wanted to believe. Would lies go down any easier than the truth? "I never wanted to hurt you."

She laughed, or made a sound that might have been one once. "You break my heart," she said, "and I break yours back."

Of course, he had nothing to say to that.


	2. Chapter 2

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Inside I'm Hollow 2/3

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

=======================

"You've died before. Tell me what it's like."

Breathe in, breathe out. Machines working lungs for a murder.

"What?" Even his voice... she could hear the slight, almost inaudible touch of Anakin's tenor, somewhere inside the deep rumble of Vader's vocoder. Padme turned her cheek to the cold metal bench, letting a slight stir of air past her lips. Darkness lapped along her fingers and toes, but she could imagine the shapes the warmth of her breath might make; a momentary flower, a curled, vanishing dragon. The sound of his boots on the stone floor now, he was somewhere both near and far in the darkness.

She repeated her request. "Something had to happen between Anakin," her bones braced themselves, waiting for his rage at the mention of that name. There was nothing, and she continued, "between Anakin and Vader. You died, you had to have. Tell me what it's like."

Breathe in, breathe out. And again.

"Why do you want to know?"

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

His glove along her cheek, touching over her lips, which were cracked and broken and remembered nothing. 

"No." He paused, took her right hand in his own. "You will not die, Padme."

Patiently, she endured, flexing the muscles in her free fingers as though her body was a foreign vessel.

"I wish you would." A cough clawed at her insides and she reflexively tried to cover her mouth and stem the blood. The machine reacted, and, when she was done screaming, she continued as if nothing had happened. "Let me die, I mean."

He gripped her hand tightly, she felt her pinkie bend like white china heated, then break as though it had been thrown it the ground.

"Never."

Down the hall, Padme heard the faint cries of a little boy with blue eyes. She pretended there was silence-- she had no comfort to give him. Her throat clutched around her heart, a taste sweet like red candy. Breathe in, breathe out; she wondered if he even really heard it anymore.

"Take off the mask," she gripped his hand back with sudden ferocity, "I want to see your eyes." Maybe they wouldn't be blue at all, maybe they'd be some other color all together and she could know that Anakin was dead, really dead and never coming back. She wouldn't wonder, wouldn't feel anything for the man who puppeted her husband's bones. 

He moved away from her-- backwards-- in the darkness, but he was still there. In some higher level of sight, she sensed him conjuring an image, and waited calmly for it to solidify. She imagined herself controlling her broken body from a distance, someplace else entirely. Perhaps someone kept her soul in a jar. Crimson fell over her eyes, and when she cast her upwards, she saw black iron growing through the red glass window. Other sounds, now; the sigh of those sleeping peacefully. The Senator and the Jedi lay in their separate beds, their faces smooth and careless as statues. 

"Why do you keep bringing me here?" her mind swam in the richness of the memory-- it seemed so long ago that perhaps it had happened to someone else. Her lungs demanded release once more, but she lay still in the space between the beds.

"The window. Open it and you open your mind to a part of the Force even the Emperor can't touch." 

"Take off your mask and I'll open the window," she challenged childishly. Then, suddenly:"The Force!" She laughed, thinking wildly that she might wake the politician and her warrior, might send them from the room and down a path that would never lead to where she was now. "There's something..." her throat spasmed, her tongue tasted the copper of her blood, "the Jedi didn't think of."

Vader took another step back, a growl unwinding from his mask like an animal on a chain. The red window fell in pieces around her, vanished.

Padme's voice was quiet, the sound of leaves on cold stone, "What if the Force is insane? Dark, light-- what if it doesn't matter, because the Force is mad and ill?" 

Even when the door closed, she continued to talk to herself in the moving shadows.

* * * * * * * * *

__

The cold in her fingers and the feel of glass against her feet made her real-- the vision pulled her in from that and anchored her with the chill of the wind on her body. The wind, yes! It cried as it raced through the streets, screamed and wailed between the high spindle towers, wept and committed suicide on walls of citadels. All round Padme, the wind was a terrible, frightened wraith; she felt it stir her hair and the short cream dress she never remembered having worn. The body she'd left had been nude. 

The world was bathed in blue and gray, from the platform she was standing on to the sky above. Turning slowly, her eyes raced along her surroundings, hungry and fearful at the same time. Tall glass trees, swayed gently beside her, stirring the violet and blue crystal wind chimes hung from them like wreaths. It was like a child's garden, a fairy tale warped and made beautiful. Surely, here, there was a glass princess with body draped in gold to glide through the forest on her glass steed. Perhaps, Padme thought wryly, you could see right through to her heart. One foot in front of the other, she moved through the forest to the small porcaline meadow beyond. The fabricated world came to a stop abruptly, and as Padme approached the edge of the platform, she saw the city washing out bellow and stretching towards the horizon. Coruscant again, then. Another step forward, with her hands out slightly for fear she could not keep her balance. There were no guard rails here, no walls, just the end of the platform and the city-planet below. The wind cried it's widow's grief and Padme cried too, standing on the very edge with her toes curled over. Silently, she tipped her head up and prayed for something she could not put to words.

"Aren't you frightened?" a young woman's voice, like honey and cinnamon. Padme closed her eyes tightly and felt the platform solid beneath her feet. One step backwards, two, three, and she turned around. There was girl standing in the wind at the threshold of the meadow, smiling with a warmth that somehow chilled Padme to the bone. Brown eyes met Padme's own opal, and the older woman realized with start that she girl could see her. She was used to being an invisible observer, or trapped in another body, so that now she felt almost obscenely exposed. The girl took a step forward, her grace somehow so familiar that Padme wanted to cry.

"Aren't you scared, standing so close to the edge?" she titled her head, bird-like, waiting for Padme's response. "No, I see that you're not." The girl turned, her hair-- so brown that it was ebony with red hidden inside-- tumbling over her bare shoulders and becoming lost in the deep folds of her gown. "Come into the forest with me," another smile, beckoning.

They crossed the meadow in silence, wove through the trees as the girl lead, seemly at random. Laughing, the young woman rounded the bend ahead of Padme and almost danced into another small glade. Here the glass trees were all around, lending to the older woman's nervousness, and the sound of crystal wind chimes was as constant as the wind. 

"Come on,"the girl called again. She stopped briefly to run her hand along the smooth contours of a glass deer bent to drink from a porcaline pond, before seating herself in a billow of black skirts. Padme approached cautiously, kneeling opposite the stranger (how can you not know!? you know! you know!).

"Thank you," she said, to fill the space. The girl smiled again-- so perfect and practiced! Reaching to one of the vases set into the ground, the girl 'picked' a violet flower. 

"Here," she held it out to Padme, who felt her mother's heart still and cry out as though stabbed. The girl's face, her eyes....

"Leia..." she breathed, feeling her tears in the pit of her stomach. Taking the flower, she held it in both hands, feeling the cold glass against her palms.

"That's right," Leia took another flower for herself, admiring it like a child. The sight should have radiated warmth, but somehow Padme felt that Leia was cold, cold through to the bone. "It's nice to have someone up here with me, for once." 

"This is.. beautiful," Padme lied, and felt sick with it.

"I know," Leia leaned back, a happy sigh escaping her parted lips, "My father built this for me, because he loves me."

"Your... father?" she almost couldn't say the word.

"Why, yes of course," the younger girl dropped her flower, looking up in surprise. The small work of art fell to the ground, shattering. Leia didn't seem to notice. "I thought if you knew my name you would surely know who I am." Now she winked, a mischievous smile playing along her mouth and in her eyes, "Some call me the Baby Senator, even if I don't like it very much. Otherwise, I'm known as Lady Vader." The flower was Padme's life-line, she gripped it and breathed the hideous name. "Yes," Leia nodded, as if Padme had said it with reverence. "It's so nice of father to let me have the title, even if I'm only sixteen. He says I'm very much like mother. I think," the Lady said, sliding her finger along the edge of her gown, "that I shall be just like mother when I grow up. Father did love her so. I shall be his very best girl, and--"

The cry that tore itself from Padme's lips was wordless and raw-- it was every word for betrayal, hurt and helpless love. Her hands moved towards each other with strength born of pain, and the flower broke, cutting into her palms. She couldn't feel it, her heart was already in two.

Freeze.

* * * * * * * * *

"She's almost ready, then?" 

You! Padme rallied against the voice, the serpent who had whispered so deceptively in her ear. In her mind's eye, she could see Palpatine's carved face, see the nameless darkness growing behind his eyes. 'Move!' she ordered her arms, her legs, 'Clench, raise up!' she commanded her hands. No movement came, it was as though she was trapped in container. In the body of a doll.

"Yes, my Master."

She felt the needle in her arm, felt the liquid sleep slithering in her veins like a white snake. 

"She has made much progress."

Somehow, she sensed Palpatine reach out a hand. The claws of her nightmares, reaching out to snatch away everything she loved. Vader beat him to it, she felt his false fingers on the back of her hand. 

"Yes, my Master. This time she registered the Force on a physical level."

The words meant nothing-- she was outraged with their presence, with her inability to move, with the future the Force had held out for her daughter. A cold princess, moving amidst her world's artifical beauty.

'My Leia...'

"Excellent," said the Emperor, and was gone.

Vader stayed by her side, bandaging her hands, which should not have been cut and bleeding.

* * * * * * * * * 

They no longer allowed her to sleep. The light was always on, an eternal angry sun; she suffered under it with eyes opened and closed; seeing the torture chamber or just the sickly pink behind her eyes. They would not let her eat, and she began to feel her body prey on itself, devouring inwards with relish despite the pain. When she was five, she'd been stricken with a horrible fever that brought dreams of shadows moving along the walls, singing, and girls who had voices but no bodies. Now, she sometimes thought she was that child, could almost feel her mother's cool touch; and sometimes, when she screamed her throat raw, she thought herself still a child, and the world around her just a nightmare.

* * * * * * * * *

A memory:

Shadows, a girl and a boy, a queen and a slave-- older now, lovers not so much in deed as the way they looked and spoke to one another, the careful hands with which they handled their new affection.

Sunset now. A table, chairs, a thin pot of honeyed Ojya juice, and cups, all of them shadows. They drink together, their faces only shadowy profiles. 

"You know, when I was younger, I used to lie... just because."

She takes a sip. "Because why?"

"I don't know. I guess... if I had a secret, something only I knew, it made it really mine. I owned it."

With understanding, "You didn't own anything else."

"No, I didn't." Pause, he drinks and sets his cup down, "I kept little secrets, but they were important to me."

"I think I understand. When I was a girl, if something really wonderful happened, I wouldn't tell anyone."

"Not anyone?"

"No. I guess, like you said, it made it mine; but it also kept it from being real. It could be as overwhelming or small as I wanted it to be." 

A sigh, they reach out across the table. Hands touch, kiss, fingers weave together.

A whisper, "This isn't real."

"We're the only ones who know."

"No one else would understand."

"Exactly."

They are happy.

... Were.

* * * * * * * * * 

_The roar of the ocean was in her ears and in her veins. Padme fell back, hands instinctively bracing herself against the marble railing. She found herself on a staircase curling downward into darkness, and the sound of endless waves. Barefoot, she moved gingerly, down one step at a time. Her fingers examined the ornate railing, the soft velvet walls with quiet awe. She had felt things the last time as well, but now each sensation was rich and heavy. She decided not to think about what that might mean. _

The stairs themselves were like seashells, spiraling down, and Padme stopped for a moment at the bottom, leaning against the wall and breathing in the smell of salt water. Her eyes roamed over the marble door before her-- she longed to stay where she was, but knew that she could not leave voluntarily. Her hand touched the doorknob, cool brass against her palm, and the breath she took was in time with click of the latch. The first thing-- the only thing-- her eyes found was the ocean pounding beyond the far side of the room. Tall windows lined the wall, curving with it in a semi circle, and on the other side, waves raged. The image was so surreal, nearly impossible, that Padme was fascinated. The room was underwater, she could only see a patch of turbulent sky when the waves pulled away; again and again, the water struck the windows, always promising death but never bringing it. At last, Padme tore her gaze away and found herself dwarfed in the magnitude of the new chamber. High velvet walls, a color so dark it could have been red or black or purple or some new shade all together. There were book shelves, too, with thick volumes in Nubian and Basic-- her old childhood favorites. Here was the one about the woman who raged across a cloud-world to save her beloved sister, and here the one that told of a young man who married a snow goddess and came to his end. Almost spellbound, Padme reached out to touch one, before pulling her hand back. Her trust was all but gone, leaked out of her veins as Vader and Obiwan and the Jedi and Anakin (beloved Ani) cut into her again and again. Even familiar things were dangerous. 

"Hello!" cried a voice. Such funny things, faces, Padme thought, fighting down the wave of despair that threatened to climb inside and gut her. 'My face can not show the whole of my being, you can not look in my eyes and see all the parts of me I have seen.' The doll, and the murderess... on and on. She was beginning to think that faces lied, that these women had no connection to her save passing resemblance. Liar.

"Hello," Padme said politely, moving towards the sound. So large was the room that she had missed it's sole occupant; herself, ripe as the moon with child and radiant with a strange darkness.

"I know you," said the other Padme-- Amidala, "I know you as well as I know myself!" She giggled at her own joke, gesturing for Padme to come closer. She reclined on a fine, almost liquid ivory lounge, this stranger, propped up amongst silken pillows and draped in sheer crimson. "Pull the chair over, dear," she suggested. Lifting the surprisingly light scrolled seat, Padme set it down opposite her mirror, leaving the long round table between them. Somehow, the soft satin cushions pressed uncomfortably against her back. "Enjui?"

"Yes," Padme licked her dry lips, "Thank you."

"I bet I know just how you take it!" Amidala's mischievous grin was somehow child-like. She poured the deep, creamy violet Enjui juice with practiced grace, setting each cup on a saucer. Holding out one for her guest, Amidala paused. "You're not..." she eyed Padme with a look somehow reminiscent of a little girl plagued by nightmares, "You're not here to hurt the babies, are you?"

"No," Padme breathed sincerely, arms aching, breasts aching, longing to hold her children.

"Good," Amidala handed over the saucer and cup, "I didn't think you would, but you never can be too careful." She stirred her Enjui, mouth lax with resentful sorrow. "There are so many people that do want to hurt the babies, you know. They just don't understand."

"I see," Padme took a sip, reluctantly relishing the sweet, dainty taste. "What wouldn't they understand?"

"Him, mostly." Just the way she said it, the way her tongue moved over the word, told Padme who 'he' was. The saucer shook in her hand.

"What about him?" she couldn't keep the quiet hysteria out of her voice.

"Oh, you don't understand either," Amidala frowned, "but I can help you. When you put things through fire, they change, right?"

Padme nodded, hands fisted in her dress.

"Well," Amidala continued, "He's just like that. The fire made him change... but he's not so very different."

Quietly, dangerously, "Yes, he is."

"No!" the mirror shook her long ropes of hair, "He's still my Ani, really! He's so angry and sad sometimes, but that's why I'm here. I can help him, and the babies-- when they come-- will help him. He's really still Ani, and he loves me so much. He just holds me sometimes because he can't touch me anymore and-- I want so badly to help him not hurt. We're going to fix things together," Amidala sat up, eyes bright. Through the sheer silken dress, Padme could see the dusk of her nipples, and the bruise marks on her shoulders. "Ani-- I still call him that, you know, because I'm the only one that really knows him. Ani's just tolerating the 'Emperor' right now, but it's only a matter of time. I'll be Queen again, and I know just what needs to be done." For a long moment, they locked eyes, and--slowly-- Amidala's widened. "Why are you looking at me like that!?" Her voice rose, "He loves me, he still does and I love him, all of him. We're supposed to be together! I *tried*..."

"STOP IT!" Cups and saucers fell to the floor, Enjui splashing everywhere. It wasn't until later that Padme realized her arm had swept them off the table. She was standing now, looming over her counterpart. Her voice dripped with her own self-disgust. "How can you *be* so selfish?"

"The Jedi kept us apart, they never..." 

"Damn the Jedi! Anakin-- VADER-- has killed people with his own two hands. That's no one's fault but his own."

"He had to kill those people..." Amidala protested weakly, "They made him.."

"*He* did it," Padme hissed, "and I see you, all of you. I see those bruises. Tell me, *Angel*," she was sick, sick to her stomach and hating herself, "does he touch you tenderly as often as he squeezes his hand around your lovely neck?"

Amidala was suddenly, violently quiet. A smile bloomed on her face, slowly. "I have a secret!" she sing-songed.

"What." A command.

"You love him too!" Amidala laughed and laughed, then sobered just as suddenly. Her eyes were full of childlike innocence when she said, "If you love him, you should be with him."

'She's insane,' Padme realized with sudden terror, 'There's nothing behind her eyes!'

"No!" Amidala grabbed hold of Padme's hand, her delicate fingers boring into flesh, "I'm not crazy! I'm not! I can help you understand!"

"I don't want to understand," Padme wept. She backed away, heedless as she cut her heel on the broken glass. Sobs tore themselves from her throat as she tired to swallow them whole. "The galaxy will go to hell because of you..." 

The room shook briefly, and was silent.

Just the light in Amidala's empty, child face sent coils of cold to wrap around Padme's heart.

"He's here," Padme whispered between heart-beats. The tears were steady, acid rain down her face now, and she turned, running, moving her legs to work out her own fear. Thrusting open the door, she stumbled through, and found herself in the old room.

Separate beds, crimson darkness, voices.

"I knew you, a long time ago."

And another voice, a little boy's-- "Open the window!"

Padme leapt towards the bright stained glass, relishing the pain as her body met with it.

The red window embraced Padme, and shattered.

* * * * * * *

Crying.

Cool water, mixed with her own blood, surrounded her, suspended her. She lay in the bath tub with her wrists cut, and the little boy with his bright blue eyes leaned over her, whispering,

"Padme, I love you, don't go away."

"You're dead!" she wept, and was back in the torture chamber. Her bonds were gone, she was standing on the far side of the room with no memory of how she got there. The doors, the racks of implements, the horrid bench all shook with her despair. Wind curled around, but she somehow knew it was of her creation and did not fear it at all. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement of white; Stormtroopers. Their blasters melted in their hands and they scattered like frightened doves. Now the lamp, her eternal painful sun, swinging from side to side; Padme let her eyes rest on it, and the bulb cracked and fell. She took the brightness within herself, gathering it against her like a child. The darkness was not the same as the Dark Side as it settled around her shoulders, she felt somehow she made her own Light. 

A sound. Breathe in, breathe out.

"Padme..." he said, and the little boy's voice echoed his. He was coming towards her, hand outstretched, offering. She felt something rise up inside her, it was as if she had terrible angel's wings at her back. The otherworldly woman, no longer a person but still painfully human.

"You!" tears were the sound of rain in Padme's voice. "I won't let you touch me again." (I miss you, Anakin...) She swept her hand towards him defensively, but it was as if her body had acquired new dimensions. Her Hand extended far beyond the tips of her fingers. Vader slid across the floor, meeting with the wall and settling against it. Utterly still. She did not run to him and she did not approach him like a frightened deer, she did not know how she came to be by his side at all. Her fingers found the latches of the helmet with uncanny ease, and she pulled it away almost frantically. "Don't be dead..." a whisper. 

He really wasn't Anakin anymore. Anakin was somewhere else, in a bottle like she had been, so that Vader was hollow and she was hollow and she didn't know if either of them could be saved.

His eye lids moved, once, and then again.

Blue.

Anakin's eyes, so blue it hurt and made you want to cry, so blue they couldn't be real, so blue that Padme wanted to fling her soul to oblivion. He moved his hand to reach for her, he thought he was dying but she knew he wasn't. Padme stared hard, trying to read the strange language somewhere in his dark double moons, but there was nothing there for her. 

"Padme..."

Her heart was not broken, because she had no heart to break.

Standing in the desert, now, all of her-- the body she'd so frequently abandoned and that something she supposed was her soul. Sand stung her cut feet and heat rushed to smother her. There was a sound, someone falling to the sand.

Anakin-- her Ani, the little boy with blue eyes.

["I knew you, a long time ago."]

He was kneeling on the sand, face filled with the look you only see in churches, hands out stretched to touch her body. She looked at him and saw that she frightened him, saw that he loved her anyway, that he thought she was death and would gladly go with her. 

"I love you," he said, and she raised her voice to call out long and low over the dunes.

"An angel," said the little boy in the empty desert. Before him, the suns were setting, but he saw nothing but the horrible glory the angel had personified. She was gone now, of course, but she would come back. For a moment, Anakin contemplated the small pocket knife at his side. He could call the Angel to him, she would take him into her arms. There was no need, he decided, pocketing the knife once more, he would see her soon enough. He smiled, hiding the experience deep inside, vowing to tell no one. 

The Angel of Death would be his sweetest secret.

All he had to do was wait.


	3. Epilogue

======================

Inside I'm Hollow 3/3

By Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

======================

EPILOGUE

They come in from the fields, laughing, arm in arm, carrying their scythes over their shoulders. They lean the long, curled tools against the wall, leaving the door open so the sounds of other worker women singing can drift in. They smell of sweet golden thrush, cinnamon and red-brown hajp-- the things they harvest. 

"--danced over the water, skipped over sea,

And all the birds of the air couldn't catch me!"

Laughter, names called out across the fields in bright, powerful voices. Hands raised in greetings, farewells, and see-you-soons. 

"You going into town tonight, doll?"

"What about the place down by the docks? Cheep fruit, good music, I hear."

"Say, have you heard about--"

"Don't that just beat all?"

"--Ha! And then *I* said..."

"They just work us to the bone, don't they?"

"I'm telling you..."

Forms retreating down the well-worn paths, arms swinging free.

'Night all.

'Night.

"I'm beat," says the dark girl, smiling none the less. She raises her long black hair out of its work-bun and begins to braid it together, absently unbuttoning her dress with her free hand.

"Me too," says the fairer one, with the new freckles sprinkled all the way down between her breasts. There are two beds, one against each wall of the bungalow, with the window in between. The fair girl sits on her bed with a grace unusual in a farm hand, idly contemplating the book at her bedside.

"You wanna read tonight, or go to the party?" asks the dark girl.

"I'm tired, Eyumi, let's just go to bed early. We have the whole holiday ahead of us."

"Yeah," Eyumi's smile is broad, her lips are large and expressive. "Maybe we'll head into town tomorrow." 

"Sounds wonderful. We can be two duchesses out for a good time."

"Don't I wish!" Eyumi finishes with her hair and drops her shift to the floor, tossing it towards a pile of clothing in the corner. Pushing the door to just a little, she eyes the faded calendar tacked up on the wall. "Say, we ought to celebrate, Achinu."

Achinu makes a questioning noise in the back of her throat, unlacing her frock and letting her hair billow around her body. Her fingers are smooth, the nails trim, her palms only just beginning to show wear. The faint, red lines of scar move along her palms, making them seem like flowers. She has heavy, elegant hands; hands that hold, and cradle and drop.

"No, look here," Eyumi taps a white, numbered square with one large finger, "See. It's been almost three years since we found you."

"Yeah," Achinu smiles, laughing at her own expense. It's a delicate sound, and must be handled carefully, or else it shall break and destroy everything. "The little naked girl in the ditch."

"Hey," Eyumi's rough hand rests just for a moment on Achinu's bare shoulder, "I'm glad you came here, however." Achinu just smiles, weaving her hair and reaching up to touch the other girl's hand. "Say," a new look comes into Eyumi's eyes, "Don't you ever wonder..."

"No," says Achinu, and the word is surprisingly flat. The door suddenly slams shut, as if to keep out the world and all that might threaten the golden peace of a day's hard work. Neither woman seems to notice. "If I don't remember, then I'm not meant to."

"I suppose. Yeah." Eyumi steps away, "Be right back, gotta use the john."

"Okay," Achinu reaches into a basket at the end of the bed, "I'll leave a piece of cornbread on your pillow." As Eyumi steps through the door, the other woman's expression changes. She regards the bread blankly, her face as empty as her memory. Then, breaking the loaf into pieces, she climbs to her feet, shaking her head as though just waking from a dream.

From outside, "Sounds good!" Achinu takes her own piece and bites into it slowly, laying back against her flat pillow and tawdry quilt. On the horizon, the sun and it's white dwarf companion are setting, throwing red light through the widow and onto the floor between the beds. The objects in the room begin to shake, as if they are human and shivering with cold. 

Slowly, Achinu reaches out a to touch the nightstand.

"Hush," she croons, pressing her hands to her breast, bowing her head. The light touches her profile, brings something to her eyes that makes her face seem to belong to someone else. "Hush."

The room is silent.

Later, "Closed the shutters for you, Achi. I know you don't like them open."

"Thanks," Achinu says sleepily, one eye open and the rest of her face buried in the pillow. Eyumi pats her on the back and moves to her own bed, settling down under the covers. "Night, Eyumi."

"Night, Achi. Sweet dreams."

"You know me." Achinu stretches, staring up into the endless night, " I never have nightmares."


End file.
